"With each dialectic there is the desire for synthesis and closure."
-anon.
Apollo and Dionysus at Delphi, Attic vase, fourth century BC. The State
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Apollo, with a crown of laurel, bids goodbye to Dionysus (bearded, wearing tragic garb and carrying the thyrsus) ruled Delphi during the three winter months while Apollo was banished to the north for the killing of Python. The ecstatic aspect of Apollo’s oracle is brought into alliance with the religion of Dionysus, Between them is a palm tree, a symbol of Apollo and victory, triumph, peace and eternal life. Beneath them is the Delphic omphalos or navel, center of the world. The grave of Dionysus was on Mt Parnasus, part of Apollo’s precinct. Behind them a palm tree, a symbol of Apollo. The other figures are maenads and satyrs, followers of Dionysus. |
Dionysus is classified by mythographers as a vegetation deity whose life, death and rebirth embodies the cycle of plants. Dionysus as god of the vine, embodies the theological themes of life, death, resurrection and immortality. The grave of Dionysus was shown in the Delphic temple beside a golden statue of Apollo. Shortly after his burial he rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven.
The narration of this cycle was reenacted by religious ritual. Each spring followers of Dionysus gathered to celebrate his resurrection at Delphi. The Cretans celebrated a biennial festival at which the passion of Dionysus was represented in detail. All that he had done or suffered in his last moments was enacted before the eyes of his worshippers. In front of them, to the music of flutes and cymbals, was carried a casket supposed to contain the sacred heart of Dionysus. As the resurrection formed part of the myth, it also was acted at the rites and was inculcated to the worshippers. Plutarch wrote of immortality of the soul as revealed in the mysteries of Dionysus.
In another version, Dionysus descended into Hades to bring his mother Semele up from the dead and the Lydians celebrated the advent of Dionysus in spring from the underworld - the god was supposed to bring the season with him.
Where Dionysus is the deity of the life force, the irrational, and the desire for immorality, Apollo represents reason, light, truth, restrained music, poetry, and much more. In short, the god of civilization
Apollo with the Muses on Mount Parnassus by Raphael, (Vatican Stanzas) |
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music,
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1872
Nietzsche, educated as a philologist, explored the history of the tragic form and introduced the dichotomy of the Greek mind between the Dionysian and the Apollonian (disordered and undifferentiated by forms versus reality ordered and differentiated by forms). Nietzsche claims life always involves a struggle between these two elements, each battling for control over the human psyche. In Nietzsche's words, "Wherever the Dionysian prevailed, the Apollonian was checked and destroyed.... wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god Apollo exhibited itself as more rigid and menacing than ever." Yet neither side ever prevails due to each containing the other in an eternal, natural check, or balance.
Nietzsche argues that the tragedy of Ancient Greece was the highest form of art due to its mixture of both Apollonian and Dionysian elements into one seamless whole, allowing the spectator to experience the full spectrum of the human condition. The Dionysian element was to be found in the music of the chorus, while the Apollonian element was found in the dialogue which gave a concrete symbolism that balanced the Dionysian revelry. Basically, the Apollonian spirit was able to give form to the abstract Dionysian.
After the time of Aeschylus and Sophocles, there was an age where tragedy died. Nietzsche ties this to the influence of writers like Euripides and the coming of rationality as represented by Socrates. Euripides reduced the use of the chorus and was more naturalistic in his representation of human drama, making it more reflective of the realities of daily life. Socrates emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. For Nietzsche, these two intellectuals helped drain the ability of the individual to participate in forms of art, because they saw things too soberly and rationally. The participation mystique aspect of art and myth was lost, and along with it, much of man's ability to live creatively in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life. Nietzsche concludes that it may be possible to reestablish the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian in modern art through some of the operas of Richard Wagner, in a rebirth of tragedy.
Katzantzakis
Any synthesis between Apollo and Dionysus is only temporary. The conflicts in the world and in the human mind and heart are never ending. Heraclitus said being should hear the logos-hagia sophia and act accordingly. There is a modern version which incorporates the basic ideas presented in the essay.Nikos Katzantzakis was the quintessential 20th century man in his search. First student of Nietzsche's ideas, then a follower of Lenin and a student of Buddhism who eventually returned to his childhood religion. In his novel, The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus shares Katzantzakis' metaphysical and existential anguish. Jesus seeks answers to the haunting questions of life and is torn between his sense of duty and mission on one hand and, on the other hand, his human desire to enjoy life, to love and to be loved as a man. A tragic figure, in the sense of Sophocles' Antigone, who in the end sacrifices his human hopes for a wider cause. Kazantzakis' Christ is not a passionless deity but rather a passionate human being who has been given a mission with a meaning that he he does not clearly understand. A mission that ultimately requires the sacrifice of his life for its fulfillment. He is subject to doubts, fears and even guilt, but whose internal struggle and sacrifice gives meaning and hope to suffering humanity. His view of the relationship of Jesus and Judas is not unlike the yin and yang of eastern thought where the opposites when in balance support one another.
The novel opens with these words. "A cool, heavenly breeze took possession of him" and the awareness of of the dialectic is revealed in this dialogue between Jesus and Judas.
"You will, Judas, my brother. God will give you the strength, as much as you lack, because it is necessary—it is necessary for me to be killed and for you to betray me. We two must save the world. Help me."
Mythographers would classify the Jesus of the gospels as a vegetable god, who like Orpheus and
Dionysus are killed and reborn. Each spring the rebirth is celebrated by
their followers. Katzantzakis cast his Jesus in a less dazzling role, but one that truly makes
Jesus the Son of Man. What we want is magic, what we have been given is the
capacity to love and the ability to be free agents. This idea was never better
expressed than by Dostoyevsky.
The Grand Inquisitor, a parable in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The
Brothers Karamazov Christ
comes back to Earth in
Seville at
the time of the
Inquisition. The people recognize him and adore him, but he is
arrested by the Inquisition leaders and sentenced to be
burnt to death the next day. The
Grand Inquisitor visits him in his cell to tell him that the Church no
longer needs him.
The Inquisitor frames his arguments around the three questions that
Satan asked Jesus
during the
temptation of Christ in the desert. These three are the temptation to turn
stones into bread, the temptation to cast Himself from the Temple and be saved
by the angels, and the temptation to rule over all the kingdoms of the world.
The Inquisitor states that Jesus rejected these three temptations in favor of
freedom, but the Inquisitor thinks that Jesus has misjudged human nature. He
does not believe that the vast majority of humanity can handle the freedom which
Jesus has given them. The Inquisitor thus implies that Jesus, in giving humans
freedom to choose, has excluded the majority of humanity from redemption and
doomed it to suffer. The Church follows "the wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and
destruction", i.e., Satan. He says: "We are not with Thee, but with him, and
that is our secret! For centuries have we abandoned Thee to follow him". For he,
through compulsion, provided the tools to end all human suffering and for
humanity to unite under the banner of the Church. The multitude then is guided
through the Church by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of
freedom. The Inquisitor says that under him, all mankind will live and die
happily in ignorance. Though he leads them only to "death and destruction", they
will be happy along the way. The Inquisitor will be a self-martyr, spending his
life to keep choice from humanity. He states that "anyone who can appease a
man's conscience can take his freedom away from him". The Inquisitor advances this argument by explaining why Christ was wrong to
reject each temptation by Satan. Christ should have turned stones into bread, as
men will always follow those who will feed their bellies. The Inquisitor recalls
how Christ rejected this, saying "man cannot live on bread alone", and explains
to Christ: "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue! That's what they'll write on
the banner they'll raise against Thee and with which they will destroy Thy
temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building; the terrible tower of
Babel will be built again, and though, like the one of old, it will not be
finished". Casting himself down from the temple to be caught by angels would
cement his godhood in the minds of people, who would follow him forever. Ruling
over all the kingdoms of the Earth would ensure their salvation, the Grand
Inquisitor claims. The segment ends when Christ, who has been silent throughout, kisses
the Inquisitor on his "bloodless, aged lips" instead of answering him.
On this, the Inquisitor releases Christ but tells him never to return.
Christ, still silent, leaves into "the dark alleys of the city". Not
only is the kiss ambiguous, but its effect on the Inquisitor is as well.
Ivan concludes: "The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to
his idea". [In our times the church has been replaced by the Nanny State dispensing
goodies in exchange for freedom.]
Catharsis
Catharsis (from the Greek
κάθαρσις
katharsis
meaning "purification" or "cleansing") is the
purification and purgation of emotions—especially pity and fear—through art or
any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. It is a
metaphor originally used by
Aristotle
in the
Poetics
to describe the effects of
tragedy on
the spectator.
(Wikipedia)
The Theban cycle of Sophocles consist of three plays:
Oedipus the King,
Oedipus at Colonus and
Antigone. All three plays concern the fate of
Thebes during and after the reign of Oedipus. Although
Sophocles, however, wrote the three plays for separate
festival
competitions, many years apart, all deal with the tragedy of Oedipus and his
family. There are three type of conflict or dialectics in the cycle. [If you,
gentle reader, are unfamiliar with the Theban Cycle there are many versions
available online.]
First: Turf Conflict
After the death of Oedipus his two sons Polyneices and Eteocles fight to the death over the throne of Oedipus. A
fight of two voluptuaries, akin to drug lords struggling for turf. Their
senseless power struggle resulting in the death of both brothers is one of the lowest
forms of the dialectic.
Second: Conflict of Principles
Antigone is faced with the choice of allowing her brother Polyneices' body to remain unburied, outside the city walls, exposed to the
ravages of wild animals, or to bury him and face death herself. The king of the land, Creon, has forbidden the burial of Polyneices for he was a traitor to the city.
Antigone decides to bury his body and face the consequences of her actions.
Creon sentences her to death. Eventually Creon is convinced to free Antigone
from her punishment, but his decision comes too late and Antigone commits
suicide. Her suicide triggers the suicide of two others close to King Creon: his
son, Haemon, who was to wed Antigone, and his wife, Eurydice, who commits
suicide after losing her only surviving son.
In the
play there are plenty of opposites and
conflicts driving the drama: state v. family, age v. youth, male v. female,
power v. powerlessness, reason v. emotion, state v. religion and the protagonists
unable to find the middle ground, annihilate not only one another, but
innocents on the sideline. In Jean Anouilh's version of Antigone
the play is purposefully ambiguous with regard to the rejection of authority
(represented by Antigone ) and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon), as
the play was staged during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
Third: The Internal Conflict